Particles as carriers of matter in the aquatic environment: Challenges and ways ahead for transdisciplinary research.

A diverse array of natural and anthropogenic particles found in the aquatic environment, can act as carriers of co-transported matter (CTM), such as nutrients, genetic material and contaminants. Thus, understanding carrier particle transport will increase our understanding of local and global fluxes of exogenous CTM (affiliated with the particle) and endogenous CTM (an inherent part of the particle). In the present contribution, researchers from multiple disciplines collaborated to provide perspectives on the interactions between carrier particles and CTM, and the fundamentals of transport of particles found in the aquatic environment and the generic spherical smooth particles, often used to make predictions about particle behavior in suspension.

The future of Earth system prediction: Advances in model-data fusion.

Predictions of the Earth system, such as weather forecasts and climate projections, require models informed by observations at many levels. Some methods for integrating models and observations are very systematic and comprehensive (e.g.

Confronting the Challenge of Modeling Cloud and Precipitation Microphysics.

In the atmosphere, refers to the microscale processes that affect cloud and precipitation particles and is a key linkage among the various components of Earth's atmospheric water and energy cycles. The representation of microphysical processes in models continues to pose a major challenge leading to uncertainty in numerical weather forecasts and climate simulations. In this paper, the problem of treating microphysics in models is divided into two parts: (i) how to represent the population of cloud and precipitation particles, given the impossibility of simulating all particles individually within a cloud, and (ii) uncertainties in the microphysical process rates owing to fundamental gaps in knowledge of cloud physics.

Solvent Vapor Annealing of a Diblock Copolymer Thin Film with a Nonselective and a Selective Solvent: Importance of Pathway for the Morphological Changes.

Diblock copolymer thin films of polystyrene-block-poly(dimethyl siloxane) (PS-b-PDMS) featuring PDMS cylinders in a PS matrix are investigated during solvent vapor annealing with mixtures of n-heptane (which is strongly selective for PDMS) and toluene (which is close to nonselective for both blocks). Swelling in the vapor of one of the pure solvents and exchanging it stepwise by the vapor of the other solvent is compared to swelling in a given binary solvent vapor mixture for a prolonged time. The resulting structural changes, such as ordering of the cylinders on a hexagonal lattice and their transition into lamellae, are followed using in situ, real-time grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS).

Vertical vs Lateral Macrophase Separation in Thin Films of Block Copolymer Mixtures: Computer Simulations and GISAXS Experiments.

Mixtures of two diblock copolymers of very different lengths may feature both macro- and microphase separation; however, not much is known about the mechanisms of separation in diblock copolymer thin films. In the present work, we study thin films of mixtures of two compositionally symmetric block copolymers, both in the one-phase and in the two-phase state, combining coarse-grained molecular simulations (dissipative particle dynamics, DPD) with scattering experiments (grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering, GISAXS). We reveal that the film thickness and selective adsorption of different blocks to the substrate control the distribution of macrophases within the film as well as the orientation of the lamellae therein.